Revision as of 16:19, 22 November 2012

Orcrist was the sword of the leader of Durin's folk, Thorin. It had a fancy scabbard and a jeweled hilt. Thorin obtained the weapon when he and his company searched the trolls' cave early in the quest of Erebor.[1]

Goblins called the blade Biter.[2] It had been crafted by the Elves, who not only made it a valuable weapon, but also a feared one, particularly among traditional enemies of the Elves: Orcs and other evil creatures of Middle-earth.[3] Like Glamdring and Sting, the blade could detect the presence of Orcs and warn its bearer by glowing blue.

Thorin was mortally wounded at the Battle of Five Armies. After his death Orcrist was placed upon Thorin's tomb and it "gleamed ever in the dark if foes approached".[4]

As discribed in the Hobbit, Orcrist "had killed hundreds of goblins in its time, when the fair elves of Gondolin hunted them in the hills or did battle before their walls". Only Rog, Duilin, Egalmoth, Tuor and Ecthelion's houses defended at the gates before the walls, and none of them except Ecthelion had boren a sword. Thus, the most probable assumption is that Orcrist belonged to Ecthelion, but this is never stated explicitly in any of Tolkien's writings.
In the Fall of Gondolin, it is stated that Ecthelion led a charge that resulted in the deaths of thousands of orcs, which made his name a terror to their race – the fact that the orcs were angry upon finding that Thorin wielded Orcrist may be an echo of this carnage. It is interesting that if Orcrist did belong to Ecthelion, the two swords were both used to fight the two most famous balrogs, Orcrist to fight Gothmog and Glamdring to fight Durin's Bane.